Missile Defense

There have been some rumblings lately about things heating up in the Gulf. There is a very real possibility that our carrier group may have to relocate to warmer waters soon. However, the scuttlebutt is always changing and I have other things to worry about today. We will be getting some practical experience against SAMs. Missile defense has been a challenge for me in the past. We’ll see how well I can meet the challenge today. The goal is simply to fly an approximation of the planned route, and avoid any and all missiles lobbed my direction.

Entering the area, EW page called up, System set to Semi-Auto





My competition for today.



“Mud launch”



Jammers on, Beaming, I acquire the missile visually and dump chaff as it starts to track. It quickly looses lock and explodes harmlessly well away from me. Whew!



I pick up a second…



Its close, time for some last ditch maneuvering, I’m also dumping chaff and an astronomical rate. No dice, I watch in horror as the engine fire lights illuminate, and the jet stops responding to my control inputs.





Time to get out!



I’ll try this again, but this time I’m coming armed



And with better recon



Entering the target range again, EW up, Harms to Self-Protect.



Packing some punch



First bird in the air, 3 o’clock low



I spoof that one and turn toward the site, MAGNUM!



Suddenly my right engine fire warnings start blaring, and I reach over, pop the bottle and kill it. I’m not sure if I took another hit
or if it was residual damage from the first missiles explosion. Either way I’m still flying, and thus still dangerous.
I crank it around as another missile streaks across my nose.



I’m trailing smoke, but I manage to duck behind the ridge and out of the SA-11’s line of sight, safe for the moment.



I pass out of range of the remaining SAM sites, hurt but still alive.



All in all I don’t think that I did too badly, considering this was my first real attempt at dancing with SAMs in JF18. However, if I
want to be good as well as lucky I’m going to need quite a bit more practice.

Side note: I haven’t been able to get my Free Track setup to work with JF18 for some reason. Using the padlock system to find the missiles in the air proved difficult most of the time. I don’t know if there is a trick to it, but I usually couldn’t get a bead on them until they were only a second or two from impact, which of course made evading them much more difficult

Also, I’m not really sure the differences between the EW modes. All I really understand is that Man forces you to do everything for yourself. Does Auto do everything for you, including dumping chaff and flares and deploying a decoy? Does Semi only receive and Jam threats automatically? Even after reading through this section of the manual several times, I still feel pretty lost when it comes to operating the EW suite.